FIRST RIDE REVIEW
NORCO RANGE VLT CX GEN 4
May 8, 2026
When I was offered to take the new Norco Range VLT for a first ride review in my home trails of the Tweed Valley, Scotland, I jumped at the opportunity. Following on from their Sight VLT, a bike that we enjoyed, but found ourselves wishing for a little more travel and capability to suit our riding preferences, we had extremely high hopes for the Range VLT. Could extra travel and slightly burlier build on the same frame do enough to satisfy our desires?
How Is The Norco Range VLT Different From The Sight VLT?
The Norco Range VLT and Sight VLT share the same mainframe, with a sleek carbon fiber front and rear triangle housing the Bosch Performance Line CX Gen 5 drive unit and a fixed internal 800Wh battery. Where they differ is in the suspension travel on offer and the build kits spec’d to accompany.
The Norco Range VLT is the burlier big brother of the Sight VLT, featuring a longer stroke shock to obtain 160mm of rear wheel travel. Leading the charge is a 170mm fork, 10mm up from the Sight VLT, which results in modified geometry that reads more aggressively on paper.
The head tube angle slackens to 63.5°, reach shortens to 466mm (S3) and the stack height rises to 640mm. The static bottom bracket height rises to 353mm, but crucially, the increased rear travel helps to offset this when sat at sag.
Norco offers the Range VLT in a choice of two build kits, the C2 at $7,299 / £8,290, or the C1 (tested) at $8,999 / £9,990. Claimed build weight for the Norco Range VLT C1 is 51.73lbs (23.46kg).
First Ride Impressions Of The Norco Range VLT
Getting the Range VLT set up was as easy as you could hope, thanks to the Ride Aligned guide they provide. Inputting your height, weight, and riding bias, you are given an initial recommended setup. From there, you can make tweaks to the setup with tuning options for the ride feel desired, traction on offer, and the type of trail you’ll be riding. With customized pressure and damper setting recommendations – which have proved to be close to perfect time after time – Norco makes it easy to get the setup in to a good baseline in quick time.
The only struggle I had came before the setup, and was no surprise. The sizing preferences of myself, Drew and Cole in The Loam Wolf crew tend to sit between Norco’s S3 and S4 geometry. In a dream world, we would split the difference in Reach and Stack height between these sizes. Norco’s UK distributor, Silverfish, only had the S3 available for me to ride at the time of testing, so they made the decision for me, in this instance. An item like the recently reviewed Works Components Reach Adjust Headset would have helped to tweak the sizing to fit better, but wasn’t practical for the short duration of this First Ride Review. As such, the Range VLT was on the low end of the sizing that I could get away with riding, but it was manageable.
Hitting the trails, and climbing on the Norco Range VLT with the Bosch Performance Line CX in the full-power setup was pleasant, as you would expect. The power and control of the Bosch drive unit is excellent, and though it falls slightly short of the Avinox drive units in terms of out-and-out power, it provides plentiful assistance to get up most gnarly climbs we dare to attempt.
The level of control is our favorite element of the Bosch system, reacting precisely to rider input to maintain the exact desired level of drive and mimicking a “superhuman” version of yourself. Range with the fixed 800Wh internal battery was plentiful, though still demanded some power management for my 220lbs/98kg mass on the bigger of the two days testing. The geometry of the Range VLT in S3 gave a decidedly cramped cockpit on the way up the hill, as you might expect, but proved to be sufficiently balanced to provide an effective tool for tech and steep climbs alike.
Going down the hill, the Range VLT offered a notable boost to comfort, composure and capability over its shorter-travel sibling. Remaining more planted, the difference between the two builds was much appreciated, but the Range retained the same overall lightweight and dialled feeling that we enjoyed about the Sight VLT. As proponents of equipping full-power eBikes with longer travel in general – since you don’t pay for the extra travel on the climbs, oftentimes gaining climbing ability with the increased traction of a longer travel system – we would likely opt for the Range over the Sight for the vast majority of our rides.
So, Norco has essentially answered most of our prayers when it came to the Sight VLT, giving a boost of capability without sacrificing too much of the agility and dialled on-trail performance that this frame design provided.
That said, the Shimano XT Di2 derailleur’s pronounced knocking on harder compressions did add a little noise to this bike in the rough. And sticking with Shimano complaints, their latest XT brakes don’t quite deliver the power and control that I would love. Otherwise, though, I’d be very much happy to ride the Range VLT as it comes, and would likely love riding it in about every terrain imaginable.